


incertitude, mépris, perte

by skydork (klismaphilia)



Series: Canon Compliant Star Wars Fics [5]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Communication Failure, Emotional Constipation, F/F, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Military Backstory, Minor Character Death, Self-Loathing, Stormtrooper Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9186443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/pseuds/skydork
Summary: FN-2187 is a pacifist, and Phasma knows as well as anyone that pacifists don’t make it far when people are at war.





	

Phasma is a Stormtrooper. She has always been a Stormtrooper, brought up by the last hands of the dismantled Empire, raised among soldiers and trained to use her body as a weapon. Her hands are more often curled into fists than simply held at her side. On the off chance that she finds time to gaze into a mirror, she can see the hints of scars along her jawline, trailed down her neck-- reminders of her progress.

_ (Or, more so, reminders of her failure. But of that, she doesn’t speak; Phasma is a Stormtrooper, and so she holds her tongue, unless she is barking out orders to those under her command.) _

There is a lot to be said of warriors, those who give their all by throwing themselves into battle, no care for the damage done to their bodies. They are single-minded with a sole purpose: to fight, to maim, to  _ kill.  _ And killing is, of course, what war asks of a soldier. Stormtroopers are bred for fighting; gladiators, as much a slave as they are a soldier. 

Anyone who doesn’t comply with the hierarchy is made a casualty. 

Now a Captain, Phasma is more than aware of that. She knows what it is like, to feel loss, to watch her brethren die, to feel a warm body bleeding out at her side until a last breath is drawn and their skin pales from exsanguination.  _ She knows  _ because she has been there, hidden away in a trench on a battlefield, her closest friend at her side. 

VS-2468’s dark skin was clammy and slicked with sweat, her face pressed into the hard armor of Phasma’s suit. Her hand, gloveless (not of regulation, not by any means) clasped tightly to the blonde trooper’s hand, squeezing it tight and linking their fingers together. Phasma realized, somehow, that the gesture was meant to be comforting.

It was anything but.

Viss wasn’t meant for war, because she wasn’t a fighter. She laughed away brutality the same way she laughed away the jeers or slights of their fellow trainees, a  _ joker,  _ someone who attempted to see  _ light  _ in places where such ideals were not held to high standard. When it came to guns, she’d rather use them as a prop than a weapon, her voice lilting to a caricatured tune representative of their commanding officer, her laugh contagious.

So when Phasma had seen Viss die, she accepted it without question; she felt the life drain from her body, watched the younger’s barely-heaving chest grow still and prostrate with death. And she learned.

_ You don’t question death when it happens. You don’t mourn a loss that is guaranteed. You carry on in their stead, and you hold them near your heart, in that locked away place where nobody can find it. You fight because you’ve already lost, and fighting is all you know. _

She says those very words to FN-2187.

FN-2187 is young, uncertain and put-upon; FN-2187 is a Stormtrooper who does not understand what it means to be a Stormtrooper. He prefers to squander his time working in sanitation than he does training for battle; listening to the idle gossip of petty officers and the occasional warm chatter of other troopers who pass by. His dark skin always carries a slight flush, more a reminder of his youth than anything else-- it’s an  _ innocence  _ that Phasma might appreciate, were it a different time, or a different galaxy.

FN-2187 is so very much like Viss. His eyes twinkle with mirth when he becomes involved in a subject, and there are lines drawn at the corners of his mouth that speak of his habit to display his emotions like a painting. 

FN-2187 is also like Phasma. His heart is on his sleeve, and it’s painful to watch-- painful, because Phasma knows that he will die. In one way or another, whether it is from being placed at the wrong end of a blaster, or having his heart ripped from his chest, destroying the compassion that seeps from his being. 

_ “You remind me of myself,” Phasma tells the young man, one hand on his still-shaking shoulder, a display of intimacy that she isn’t used to. 2187 stiffens, and his body pulls in on itself, like an armor of reflex drawn from recurrent abuse. His eyes, dark and glowing, like the embers of a dying fire, find hers-- the crestfallen expression that crosses his visage sears into the Captain’s mind. _

_ “I’m sorry, sir?” He asks. _

_ Phasma shakes her head. “It’s nothing. You should rest.” _

_ Her voice is monotonous, as she has programmed it to be; emotion is weakness here, and it would be foolish to show such emotion toward a walking corpse. But FN-2187 continues to watch her, and his face is marred by disbelief. He doesn’t understand-- he knows, somehow, that she is attempting to comfort him, but he cannot make sense of it. There’s no reason for someone like Phasma to care what happens to a trooper whose mind is at odds with itself, who will likely be reconditioned again and again until weakness is wrung from his body entirely. _

_ “Thank you, sir.” 2187 says, minutely, as he watches Phasma’s back, covered only by the thin fabric of a standard black undershirt, her rippling muscles apparent under the cloth, her hair messy from the exercise given only minutes earlier. _

_ Phasma says nothing; she wishes she had. _

Because now, looking at the bare expanse of 2187’s face, his rough sneer, his worried eyes, the  _ passion  _ that is dripping from his entire being, she realizes how wrong she was.

“FN-2187,” the distorted, rigid voice filters through her vocoder, nothing that could even be registered as human in the tone of it. She thinks of a white uniform, a mask streaked red with lines of blood, and her chest aches. She grips her blaster tighter than before, even as it is wrenched from her hands, a final attempt to stifle whatever  _ feeling  _ it is that presses insistently at the inside of her sternum, her accelerated heartbeat not taking even a pause in its motion.

“It’s  _ Finn,  _ now. And I’m in charge, Phasma.  _ I’m in charge. _ ” 2187 replies, and Phasma wants to grab him. She wants to wrench him close and shake his shoulders and say,  _ Don’t you see what you’re doing? Don’t you see that everything is going to fall apart, that you’ll be left to choke, killed by your sentimentality? _

She doesn’t; because to speak her mind is to put herself at risk, and to put herself at risk is to be  _ vulnerable.  _ Vulnerability is not befitting of a Stormtrooper.

_ What is?  _ Phasma has to ask herself, because her vision is filled with 2187’s-- _ Finn’s-- _ frustrated smirk, the soulful, heartfelt brown of his eyes, the rich tone of his skin and his coarse black hair. 

_ He looks so much like her. _

**He looks like _her,_ and she _hates_ him for it. **

**Author's Note:**

> Finn is one of my favorite TFA characters and I don't write Phasma nearly as much as I should, and I really just wrote this for the sheer sake of wanting to do something about the two of them because I never do. Anyway.


End file.
